Afghan Presidential Elections

Planning for the 2014 Afghan Presidential elections started in 2012.

It began with a UN programme whose job it was to build the capacity within the Independent Election Commission (IEC) of Afghanistan - the institution tasked with administering and supervising the forthcoming election.

With insurgent actors such as the Taliban in direct opposition of the elections, the main concern was how to secure the electoral process.

As the security advisor to the IEC, I worked with the organisation over 18 months in designing and implementing a top-down, bottom-up holistic security strategy that enabled them the mitigate the threat levelled against them by the Taliban.

The Afghan presidential elections were held successfully in April 2014.

The most salient security incident being an attack on the IEC complex in Kabul two weeks prior to the votes being cast. The assault was unsuccessful.